What's on my mind…

So, I think at this point that even people living under rocks know about Sarah Palin and her tale of Paul Revere. I’m not really going to talk about it. I don’t have an issue with it, except for the way she dug her heels in and insisted she was right. I also have issues with people trying to revise the wikipedia page. But NO. This is not about her. Enough has been written about her.

This is about the American flag. A symbol on many a lapel. I read an article on washingtonpost.com and it absolutely blew my mind. Think about everything you know about our flag. Guess what? It’s all wrong. The block quotes are from the article I linked to, you should check it out.

So, if someone asked you who made the American flag, you’d say Betsy Ross. Unless you’re that person from Jaywalking who said Diana Ross. However, apparently she didn’t make the American flag. She made flags in Philadelphia, just not ours.

As President Woodrow Wilson, who presided over the first official national Flag Day on June 14, 1916, is said to have replied when asked his thoughts on the story: “Would that it were true.”

Also, do you own anything with an American flag on it? Tsk tsk. Illegal.

The U.S. Flag Code frowns on the use of the flag “for advertising purposes.” It goes on to warn against the sale or display of any “article of merchandise . . . upon which shall have been printed, painted, attached, or otherwise placed a representation of” the flag to “advertise, call attention to, decorate, mark, or distinguish the article or substance on which so placed.”

Apparently it’s not enforced. I can only imagine if it were…

Did you know that the House of Representatives did not recite the pledge of allegiance on the floor until 1988? The Senate didn’t do it on a daily basis until 1999. Crazy.

Also, red, white and blue don’t symbolize sacrifice or anything like that. There’s no official reason given for why our flag is red, white and blue. It’s mostly likely that the flag is red, white and blue because the colonial flags were that color. And the British flag.

The article was written by Marc Leepson. He wrote a book called ‘Flag: An American Biography.’ I just marked the book as “to-read” on my Goodreads account. I love flags. I can name every flag in the world. Can you?

I stumbled upon this interesting article today. China’s Foreign Ministry responded to the U.S. State Department’s criticism of their human rights record by basically telling us to mind our own business and take a look in the mirror.

An excerpt from the article:

“The United States ignores its own severe human rights problems, ardently promoting its so-called ‘human rights diplomacy’, treating human rights as a political tool to vilify other countries and to advance its own strategic interests,” said a passage from the Chinese report.

Produced by the State Council Information Office, the government’s public relations arm, the report dwelled on what it said were severe deprivations and threats facing many Americans, as well as Washington’s invasion of Iraq.

It also cited the United States’ refusal to ratify a number of international human rights pacts, and listed poverty, hunger and homelessness as stains on the country’s rights record.

“The United States is the world’s worst country for violent crimes,” said the report. “Citizens’ lives, property and personal safety do not receive the protection they should.”

“Racial discrimination is deeply rooted in the United States, permeating every aspect of social life,” it said.

It leaves me wondering…do they have a point? We have Guantanamo Bay. A recent poll showed that 46 percent of “hardcore Republicans” in Mississippi think that interracial marriage should be illegal. Gay marriage is illegal in the majority of our states. Then there is the resistance to signing human rights treaties that they cited. If you want to go back in time, we have the treatment of Native Americans, slavery and Jim Crow.

In spite of that, I think China wins in terms of human rights violations. Just saying. Can any country cast the first stone when it comes to human rights? Maybe Sweden or the Netherlands, but do they have the economic or military power to force a country like China to release political prisoners or allow freedom of religion?

Yes, we have some work to do in cleaning up our own human rights record. So do a lot of countries. However, what would happen if the United States didn’t try to use its political clout to curb human rights violations?

I don’t have any answers on this. I’ve just been thinking about it.

What do you think?

As most of you know, an earthquake struck Japan early friday morning. The earthquake registered an 8.9 on the Richter scale and triggered a massive tsunami, which devastated Japan and most of the countries in the Pacific. The death toll is expected to exceed 10,000. Survivors are living in temporary shelters while the food supply dwindles.

Thoughts and prayers are always appreciated, but there are some more concrete things you can do to help the people of the Pacific. There was a great blog post on Huffington Post about various groups and their relief efforts. Instead of regurgitating the post here, I’m going link to it.

The earthquake and tsunami come on the heels of the earthquake in New Zealand last month. Of course, many people are still donating money to Haiti and to the gulf after the oil spill. Last August I wrote a post about the flooding in Pakistan and why relief was sluggish. One of the issues brought up was that major relief groups are only equipped for one natural disaster a year.

So as the devastating pictures keep coming in and the bad news piles up, please don’t forget that there are things you can do to help the people in the Pacific.

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